I’ve been urging seat belt installation on school buses for years. Finally (certainly not because of anything I did) Dallas County will begin using seat belts in some of their school buses. Here are excerpts from a Dallas Morning News article:
Dallas County Schools, which provides buses for Dallas ISD and eight
other school districts, will have dozens more large buses with
lap-shoulder belts. And district officials said they hope belts will be
in more buses in the future."Common sense says we need
to protect our kids every way possible, and that includes seat belts,"
said Larry Duncan, Dallas County Schools board president. "I would like
to see them all with seat belts overnight, but we can’t get that done."Dallas County Schools already has installed shoulder-lap
seat belts on two buses that serve DISD elementary schools in North
Dallas. This month, the district expects to receive 70 new large buses
equipped with lap-shoulder belts similar to those in passenger cars,
officials said.Despite the district’s decision to have
the seat belts, the debate remains about the benefits of seat belts on
buses.A 2002 report by the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration about shoulder-lap seat belts in school buses
concluded that "lap belts appear to have little, if any, benefit in
reducing serious-to-fatal injuries in severe frontal crashes."The design of school buses, with their big, plush seats and lengthy
The district’s
body, makes them safe, transportation safety experts say.
decision to retrofit buses and purchase ones with seat belts comes more
than a year ahead of the effective date for a Texas law that will
require school buses purchased after September 2010 to have seat belts.
State legislators passed the law after two Beaumont students died when
their school bus overturned in 2006.But the law is contingent on the state providing money to districts to
install the seat belts, so the law may never take effect, Duncan said.
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